This invention relates to a gas inflatable punching bag toy known as a "Bop bag". A bop bag stands freely on a surface or it floats in water, and it is ballasted so that when it is struck by a child (of any age) it is displaced from an initial stable upright position, then the weight of the ballast returns the bop bag to said initial position. Accordingly, the bop bag has a basic function as a rebounding punching bag, whereby it offers the child excitement and presumably allows the child to act out aggressions. In performing its basic function, the bop bag rolls randomly in response to punches by the child.
Bop bags have been around for quite a while and they are popular toys, so competition among designers of bop bags is keen. Improvements have added attractive features to bop bags, typically they are decorated with characters, friendly or unfriendly. By way of extreme, U.S. Pat. No. 4,268,030 to Mr. Lawrence Richards disclosed a bop bag which includes front and rear panels and an intermediate panel spaced medially substantially equidistant from the front and the rear panel. The front and intermediate panels of Richards' bop bag are formed of a transparent material, while the rear panel is opaque. Images are imprinted on the internal surfaces of the three panels, the images cooperating with each other to produce an illusion of three dimensions and a composite image which continuously changes with different angles of observation. The Richards patent is cited here to illustrate a highly advanced stage of bop bag gimmickery. Even with highly motivated efforts, however, design improvements in bop bags have been limited, because the bop bag had been thought of in the trade to be a free standing structure. Since it has to be able to roll randomly, the bop bag was considered by toy designers to be isolated unto itself.
The present invention recognizes how much fun it is for children to control a shower of water onto each other, so the present inventors sought to convert the bop bag into a water spray directing toy. This conversion entailed a hose connection which, it had generally been thought, would incline the bop bag out of its stable initial upright position and would distort the random rolling which is so necessary for basic bop bag action.